The Schrodinger's Cat
by Eternal-Night-Ride
Summary: The Schrodinger's cat: a thought experiment in which if one state is coaxed to another state but isn't observed, the superposition is to assume that the subject lay within both states. Because no one was willing to place it out into the open, it was simultaneously both there and not. The uncertainty principle propagated by both parties. And it was best that way.


It was referred to as the Schrodinger's cat. A thought experiment that reflected the Copenhagen interpretation in quantum mechanics, in which if one state is coaxed to another state but isn't observed, the superposition is to assume that the subject lay within both states. The human way of posing the concept is to make an example of an experiment of putting a domesticated animal in a box, trigger a poisonous substance to release and refuse to observe whether it was alive or not. And therefore, due to the uncertainty left by lack of observation during this certain period of time, it would have to be postulated as being both dead and alive.

They had a different way of presenting the theory on Galvan Prime and it wasn't considered absurd there either. Humans just had a severe lack of imagination and innovation, which showed in the pathetically low-tech backwater planet.

But he digressed.

The reason why he was thinking about that particular thought experiment was because of the person in front of him. Big dark eyes, mysterious and yet overly enthusiastic. A rounded face framed with dark hair. And a smile as incomprehensible as it always was the moment they met. At least in real life. He saw her with him in magazines before but he never considered they would actually bump into one another.

While he would have preferred to say something along the lines of wanting to consider her the cat in the experiment, it was disappointingly less morbid than that. What he considered the cat was something less corporeal - the cat was an abstract concept.

Because no one was willing to place it out into the open, it was simultaneously both there and not. The uncertainty principle propagated by both parties.

And it was best that way.

-

She was in her interstate matches, surprised upon finding the boyfriend she thought was at Bellwood. Making appearances at conventions for profit and promotion of some bigger project. Something she had no idea of.

It was a fan of his that alerted her of it, recognizing her as the girlfriend of the well-celebrated alien hero. Even there in an event trying to make a name for herself his shadow was far cast over her. She just smiled in this defeated, tired way that one did when one was arguing with oneself over the spite one felt for something that seemed so petty and the justifications that followed.

Things were a little complicated right now. But this turn of events managed to make it more complicated. There was confusion first, a bloom and fluttering of hearts at the romantic idea he would drop everything for her. How stupid was that thought, no matter how fleeting.

Then she saw his expression: apprehensive, a faltering arrogant smile after being redirected from fan adoration to her face. Her face that asked millions of questions without even opening her mouth. The fans said and asked things, which he not-answered. With a charm and theatricality of a bad actor still forced into his role. She watched curiously, waiting. These people didn't know him like she did. And while it took her some time, when she finally had her time alone with him - he evaded her as hard as he could but they stumbled into each other nonetheless - she found out. The inevitable.

The world was small and she found someone else living under his shadow, and it was a more all-encompassing prison for someone else than it was for her. Her problem seemed more childish in the face of this one.

She confronted him with the knowledge of who he wasn't. Expecting violence, retribution or any number of responses rather than the dismissive: so what? He thought very little of her. It would be cruel, she knew, but she could expose to the rest of the world that he was a fraud and cut off the finances that funded his food and shelter in the time he was stuck there. Deception was still deception and she was sure there were plenty of legal repercussions for identity theft.

Instead of pulling a death threat, which she was sure he was itching to do instead, he was willing to bargain. He was an emotional, explosive creature, so it was far-reaching that he wanted a negotiation over settling things more aggressively. And perhaps in an unexpected turn of her own, in her still eternally wide-eyed curiosity, she took the terms.

She wanted an explanation for this - In the corner of her eye, there was a poster for a live show - whatever this thing was.

As unwilling as he was to divulge anything about his plans, he gave her a little bit of something. Leaving. A means to get off this world. And without the money from the appearances and performances he couldn't get a hold of tech good enough to do so. She didn't feel like this was the complete truth and it seemed too simple, too defeatist for a stubborn creature such as him. After hearing enough about his persistence, she doubted it was just that easy.

She proposed discussing his idea over dinner. There was much blinking. It sounded awfully a lot like - not what it was. But free food was free food. Chili cheese fries were more attractive when they didn't take away from the bigger project.

Maybe she wasn't entirely too powerful, too useful or comparable to any of the great people who have backed the hero up in his times of need. The little things that she could do, though, she would make them count. In her way, it was a way to carve out her own identity. Her own life.

And he with his.

So they discussed things civilly over dinner, the way a coolly, quietly passive aggressive teenaged girl and a homicidal over-ambitious alien genius could.

Then it became official, she was a financier. An unmentioned financier. She wasn't staying too long due to prior commitments but she would donate. Whatever she could to help him continue his charade.

He had his suspicions about her ulterior motive, questions about the nature of her relation to him. That he wouldn't believe she would be a mindlessly selfless giving person. He cared little for whatever messy personal drama that she may be engaged in, but he suspected that too. So she confirmed to him that he was right.

"I'm selfish. I'm helping you so you'll put your energy into leaving rather than hunting him down. So I'm helping you."

"Your blind trust is amusingly misguided."

And she smiled. The magazines never could quite capture the nature of that smile - reserved and held in, enigmatic like nothing else. Like he was somehow playing a patient game of chess with her, when he was more the sort of person to crush the chessboard to get it over and done with. Preferably with a carefully, lovingly constructed weapon of considerable destruction. There was a part of him that fancied the theatrics and the overblown, after all.

There was correspondence between them. Nobody ever talked about the incident that accidentally brought them together. Nobody else knew even through it all. Even his friends/employees.

That was alright, she thought. He had a better support system now, with his band of actors. His friends, who he bullied around and were surprisingly happy in being ordered around. They could get this project off the ground much faster.

One other day, they managed to somehow meet again. They didn't really need to be face to face, monetary support and talking could be done over the cold connection of the internet. It was his favorite sort of shop, she just so happened to be looking for familiar flavors being far from home.

What she hadn't heard yet was that his operations had been recently taken down. Legal repercussions of identity theft were, indeed, plenty. That was when she finally learned the truth behind the great amount of funding he needed. Not just a ship, but a much more important ability to finally walk out of someone else's shadow. Which had been ruthlessly ripped from him.

She was so her that she couldn't help the twinge of sadness over his failures. "I'm sorry."

He grimaced. Glaring at her as if he wanted to blame her for what had happened. "I have no need of your pity."

These were times she felt stupid and young. Even in her desperate need to help she didn't really know where to start. She had the habit of saying the wrong things recently and she didn't want to blame that on being a crabby teenager because that was unfair. No excuses.

They continued to talk and she'd find out more about the situation through him than through her actual boyfriend, perhaps in his embarrassment over his response to the whole issue. She expressed disappointment that his friend - Hugh, she thought he was a such a sweetheart too - would do that.

And his response was to stab the food with his fork like it did him wrong. "It's not him. Ben Tennyson; he destroyed months of work and careful planning, like always." The plate looked far more reflective to her than it did before, then the painful squeak of fork stabbing the plate made her look up instead.

Her eyebrows knitted in concern. Was this what it looked like to compete uselessly because of that overreaching shadow that hovered over you? How childish and young it looked. As iron wrought as his cage was, as much as it could be justified, the jail of his fears was self-imposed.

In the end, perhaps her actions had ended up futile. She wasn't able to help him. Someone would unhelpfully say that it's the thought that counts. So she knew better than to exacerbate his mood by saying something that meant nothing. Instead, they stuck with the usual: not saying anything at all.

The rain pattered quietly on the windows outside of the restaurant. No one took particular notice of them, it seemed innocuous enough. It was a nice day.

The thing about being her was that she was always on the edge of whatever insanity of that life. Like a person walking on the quiet part of the sidewalk while things were exploding, chaotic and adventurous just a few miles to her side. It wouldn't surprise her if she ended up Go-Karting with Vilgax on his day off.

It had been a while on before she ended up stumbling in the same place as he did. The park was quiet. Her dog had just run off and here they were under a dark dissiduous tree on a park bench.

Mouth skewed to the side in irritation, he asked her, "Are you following me?"

"I was about to ask you the same question," she responded jokingly, sitting on the other end of the bench. The very edge. As far as possible.

"Don't flatter yourself," he remarked edgily.

He had odd markings on the side of his face and under his chin. Like scars from something. Healing over, but still visible. They were strangely like old friends catching up when she asked in concern about his scars.

"For someone so close you seem to know so little," he snorted jadedly.

There was silence. "That's news to me," she said quietly.

"What? That you happen to be one of Tennyson's close acquaintances?"

"Oh, that."

"What exactly would you be th-" Then stopped. Because they were suddenly walking into uncovered territory.

Like dancing around eggshells.

There was a never a question of whether they were friends or enemies or strangers or something. Just that they were here, as they were there way back when. No questions asked. She helped him, he didn't try to kill her, they didn't try to garner any kind of tactical advantage over one another because they weren't in a fight. He thought of her as being on the fringe of his battles, an unrelated, occasional annoyance. She didn't have to fight back when he didn't even bother attacking her.

Instead they stood on whatever ground they were on without question of what classification they held towards the other. They were what they were.

When one of the scars under his chin bled out from cranking his head too forcefully to look past her, she held out a handkerchief. Without words. As usual. He wasn't enthused over the idea of taking it, but she never put her arm down until he begrudgingly took the piece of cloth.

Beyond the expectations, he kept it. Long after she'd left, long after needing it. Smartly, he never asked what that meant. Too arrogant and stubborn perhaps to acknowledge that he did so.

Over the complicated, hate-inducing ideas of being tugged around by emotions not his own, he chose to ignore that detail. There were far better, more numerous things to hate his arch-nemesis for.

This was theirs. Even if it was something that was an event happening well within a controlled environment, unopened and unexplored. Not analyzed so that no one could draw conclusions. There were some questions that he never wanted answered.

Nor did she. And it was for the best.


End file.
